Intel unveils $200 Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and $300 Core Ultra 7 270K Plus CPUs | Infinium-tech

Intel unveiled its fastest gaming processors yet with the Core Ultra 200S Plus series. The series features two new CPUs that promise up to 15% faster gaming performance than the existing Core Ultra 2-series CPUs.

With the insane prices of RAM and SSD, upgrading your gaming PC in 2026 is a tough task. Finding a good deal on a GPU is equally challenging. However, the new Plus CPUs are priced well and they support all current motherboards with 800-series chipsets.

New Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus CPU

The Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is priced at $200, while the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is priced at $300. They have several upgrades on the 245K and 265K starting with four more E cores. The 250K Plus has a 6P+12E configuration and the 270K Plus has an 8P+16E configuration. For reference, 245K and 265K were 6P+8E and 8P+12E respectively.

Increased gaming performance: 250K Plus • 270K Plus

With these additional cores, Intel claims the 250K Plus will have double the multi-threaded performance of the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X. It is a 6-core, 12-thread CPU launched in 2024 for $280. This refers to what Intel calls “content creation” – for example, rendering with Blender and Cinebench.

Multi-threaded performance boost and test configuration

However, it’s not just extra cores. The cores themselves run at essentially the same frequencies as non-Plus CPUs. However, other parts of the CPU, particularly the memory interconnect, are running 900 MHz faster, which reduces latency significantly.

Right now probably isn’t the best time for it, but you can combine the plus CPU with faster RAM. Previous models supported 6400 MT/s RAM, while the Plus CPU can handle 7200 MT/s DDR5 – and even 8,000 MT/s if you enable the Boost BIOS profile.

And then there’s a special sauce called Intel Binary Optimization Tool. In short, it takes game code that may have been optimized for other platforms, such as consoles for example, and optimizes it to run faster on Intel CPUs. The above results use this tool.

New Intel Binary Optimization Tool

This sounds similar to how GPU drivers bring game-specific optimizations with every update – Intel will add game profiles that will improve the performance of a particular title, so it will improve old and new titles alike.

We mentioned that the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus support all current motherboards with 800-series chipsets. And they do. However, Intel has made improvements to the motherboard that will provide initial support for 4-rank CUDIMM memory, which can pack up to 128GB per module. With two of these, you can have up to 256GB in one system. These motherboards are coming later this year.

Upcoming motherboards will offer initial support for 4-rank CUDIMM RAM

As far as the Two Plus CPUs are concerned, they will be available from March 26th. If you prefer, pre-built systems with the new CPU will also become available at the same time. Intel has sent samples to reviewers for testing and says reviews are expected a few days before the March 26 launch.

Additionally, Intel says there will be more “Plus” CPUs in the future – they’ll be the final versions of that generation’s CPU technology and offer an upgrade path that won’t require throwing out your motherboard.

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